Removing Paint from Bricks

Loose brick or brick wall?

R
Reply to
RicodJour
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What's the best way to remove paint from red bricks? Is it a reasonable DIY project or something for a professional?

Reply to
DaveR

I like the Peel Away stuff.

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Major benefits include non-toxicity and, if using the fabric, the paint comes off in a sheet. Not sure if there's lead paint there, but if there is you don't want to be blasting it off with water or sand and having it get in your soil.

Pressure washing is less prone to damaging the brick than sand blasting, but the sand will cut the paint better and remove more of the traces.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

I'd like to think that was true, but I believe it's usually because they wanted another color.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

You will never get it all off better off leaving it. Brick is usualy painted for a reason, it is going bad.

Reply to
m Ransley

External brick wall, surrounding a window. The former owner painted it white, which is a shame, because the natural brick is so much nicer.

Reply to
DaveR

It realy depends on house age and softness of brick, what I see getting painted is 100 yr old soft fired brick that has spalled , deteriorated and looks so bad and can only look good painted. Old brick doesn`t mean bad brick just some is soft junk [so is some new brick] . But true some just like paint on everything, even stone sills.

Reply to
m Ransley

I have a pressure washer with a sandblaster attachment that does a fair job. Success depends on the condition/hardness of the brick, mortar and paint adhesion.

Reply to
tcg

Just to be carefull use small container of peal away on 2-3 bricks and see whats under there before spending lots of $$$. S

Reply to
Anonymous

The house is 50 years old. Identical homes on the same block still have the natural red brick and they look fine. So I believe the owner just painted it along with the rest of the house, because he wanted the all-white look.

Reply to
DaveR

Go back in time and throttle the fool who painted the brick.

Time travel is best left to the professionals, but you can do your part by making sure no one you ever encounter thinks that you would ever approve of painting brick. It's essentially permanant, tho you can, with huge amounts of patience and diligence and effort and luck, get a whole lot of it off: usually it's easier to knock out the bricks and start over if you really want to get back to a bare brick finish.

What I have seen done that works fairly well is to paint the bricks brick color. That is mix up some grey for the mortar lines, some dark red for the brick face and try to match the surrounding brick or a pleasant enough brick color. You can get real fancy by fisrt painting a slightly darker shade and then going over it lightly with a slightly lighter color to make the effect really be convicning, but you still have a painted surface to maintian anstead of the maintenance free brick surface.

John

Reply to
raven

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